Most Popular Books by Peter Hessler

“Hessler has a marvelous sense of the intonations and gestures that give life to the moment.” —The New York Times Book Review From Peter Hessler, the New York Times bestselling author of Oracle Bones and River Town, comes Country Driving, the third and final book in his award-winning China trilogy. Country Driving addresses the human side of the economic revolution in China, focusing on economics and development, and shows how the auto boom helps China shift from rural to urban, from farming to business.

An intimate and revelatory account of two generations of students in China’s heartland, by an author who has observed the country’s tumultuous changes over the past quarter century More than two decades after teaching English during the early part of China’s economic boom, an experience chronicled in his book River Town, Peter Hessler returned to Sichuan Province to instruct students from the next generation. At the same time, Hessler and his wife enrolled their twin daughters in a local state-run elementary school, where they were the only Westerners. Over the years, Hessler had kept in close contact with many of the people he had taught in the 1990s. By reconnecting with these individuals—members of China’s “Reform generation,” now in their forties—while teaching current undergrads, Hessler gained a unique perspective on China’s incredible transformation. In 1996, when Hessler arrived in China, almost all of the people in his classroom were first-generation college students. They typically came from large rural families, and their parents, subsistence farmers, could offer little guidance as their children entered a brand-new world. By 2019, when Hessler arrived at Sichuan University, he found a very different China, as well as a new kind of student—an only child whose schooling was the object of intense focus from a much more ambitious cohort of parents. At Sichuan University, many young people had a sense of irony about the regime but mostly navigated its restrictions with equanimity, embracing the opportunities of China’s rise. But the pressures of extreme competition at scale can be grueling, even for much younger children—including Hessler’s own daughters, who gave him an intimate view into the experience at their local school. In Peter Hessler’s hands, China’s education system is the perfect vehicle for examining the country’s past, present, and future, and what we can learn from it, for good and ill. At a time when anti-Chinese rhetoric in America has grown blunt and ugly, Other Rivers is a tremendous, essential gift, a work of enormous empathy that rejects cheap stereotypes and shows us China from the inside out and the bottom up. As both a window onto China and a mirror onto America, Other Rivers is a classic from a master of the form.

Full of unforgettable figures and an unrelenting spirit of adventure, Strange Stones is a far-ranging, thought-provoking collection of Peter Hessler’s best reportage—a dazzling display of the powerful storytelling, shrewd cultural insight, and warm sense of humor that are the trademarks of his work. Over the last decade, as a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of three books, Peter Hessler has lived in Asia and the United States, writing as both native and knowledgeable outsider in these two very different regions. This unusual perspective distinguishes Strange Stones, which showcases Hessler’s unmatched range as a storyteller. “Wild Flavor” invites readers along on a taste test between two rat restaurants in South China. One story profiles Yao Ming, basketball star and China’s most beloved export, another David Spindler, an obsessive and passionate historian of the Great Wall. In “Dr. Don,” Hessler writes movingly about a small-town pharmacist and his relationship with the people he serves. While Hessler’s subjects and locations vary, subtle but deeply important thematic links bind these pieces—the strength of local traditions, the surprising overlap between apparently opposing cultures, and the powerful lessons drawn from individuals who straddle different worlds.

A century ago, outsiders saw China as a place where nothing ever changes. Today the country has become one of the most dynamic regions on earth. In Oracle Bones, Peter Hessler explores the human side of China''s transformation, viewing modern-day China and its growing links to the Western world through the lives of a handful of ordinary people. In a narrative that gracefully moves between the ancient and the present, the East and the West, Hessler captures the soul of a country that is undergoing a momentous change before our eyes.

Records the author''s experiences as a Peace Corps English teacher in the small Chinese city of Fuling, during which time he witnessed such events as the death of Deng Xiaoping, the return of Hong Kong to the mainland, and the construction of the Three Gorges Dam.

The president -- The coup -- The president.

Emotional, highly expressive, and transcending the boundaries of travel genre, this book is very attractive to anyone who wants to know more about the Chinese soul. ─Booklist. Looking back at nine in the 1980s, China revisited the story of a small town in Sichuan that was forgotten by the world. This is a history of low-level mentality that was not understood by the Chinese but was carefully observed by American youth. This is the birthplace of He Weifei''s fictional writing and the initial starting point of the Chinese Trilogy. Fuling, Sichuan, recorded in River City, is a small city on the riverside that is generally seen in China and has nothing to do with high-level development

Een onthullend en intiem portret van twee generaties studenten in het hart van China

Correspondant du magazine New Yorker à Pékin au début des années 2000, Peter Hessler décide de passer son permis de conduire local, rejoignant les rangs des pionniers d''un boom automobile qui reflète les tensions et les paradoxes de la modernité chinoise. C''est le début d''une aventure de près d''une dizaine d''années pendant laquelle l''auteur ira à la rencontre des espoirs et des inquiétudes du peuple chinois. Au fil de ses pérégrinations, il découvre un pays qui se transforme à vue d''œil sous l''effet d''un développement capitaliste débridé. Comment les Chinois vivent-ils au quotidien cette modernisation folle et l''accélération des transformations sociales qui l''accompagne ? Dans les bourgades à l''abandon qui s''égrènent au long de la Grande Muraille jusqu''aux confins du plateau tibétain, Peter Hessler déchiffre les traces de l''histoire impériale et communiste et les défis de l''exode rural. Cherchant un refuge d''écrivain dans la campagne pékinoise, il noue une relation intime avec les habitants du village de Sancha, qu''il voit s''ouvrir - non sans contradictions - en quelques années à la consommation, à l''esprit d''entreprise et au tourisme des classes moyennes urbaines émergentes. Parti explorer les villes-champignons industrielles du sud de la Chine, il narre l''épopée picaresque d''une usine de confection, de ses patrons autodidactes et de ses ouvriers tout juste débarqués des provinces rurales de l''intérieur. Ce faisant, il nous éclaire sur les dimensions humaines de la plus grande migration économique de l''histoire. Dans un livre plein de personnages attachants, avec un sens du récit digne des grands maîtres du journalisme narratif, Peter Hessler offre un aperçu sans précédent sur les convulsions intimes d''un pays aux prises avec la " Grande Transformation " de ce début du XXIe siècle. Journaliste au New Yorker, Peter Hessler a publié plusieurs livres, salués par la critique, qui sont devenus des best-sellers aux États-Unis : River Town (2001) et Oracle Bones (2006).

China verstehen Hautnah erlebt der Journalist und Auslandskorrespondent Peter Hessler in China die Dekade der großen Reformen: den wirtschaftlichen, gesellschaftlichen und kulturellen Umbruch, die millionenfache Migration vom Land in die neuen Megacities an den Küsten, die Zersetzung einer Kultur, die von uralten Traditionen geprägt ist. Hessler erzählt das Geschen aus der Perspektive der Betroffenen. Selbst die zeitgeschichtlichen Ereignisse, über die er als Korrespondent berichtet, beleuchtet er aus der Sicht einfacher Leute. Er lebt in einer kleinen Mietwohnung in den Gassen eines alten Pekinger hutong-Viertels, und von hier unternimmt er seine Reisen durch das Reich der Mitte, erlebt kulturelle Barrieren, historische Empfindlichkeiten und menschliche Schicksale. Der Wechsel von Themen, Geschichten und Erzählebenen macht Hessler''s Buch so spannend: Der Leser beginnt, China als Ganzes mit seinen unterschiedlichsten Facetten zu erleben - und zu verstehen. In den literarischen Bericht seines Reporterlebens, seiner Begegnungen und seiner Reisen mischt Hessler auch seine Exkursionen in die reiche chinesische Geschichte. Manche Episode bleibt am Ende so rätselhaft wie die Weissagungen und Prophezeiungen der Orakelknochen, der ältesten Funde chinesischer Schriftzeichen, die in Knochen oder Schildkrötenpanzer graviert wurden.

An American journalist living in Beijing offers an odyssey through twenty-first-century China as seen through the eyes of a handful of ordinary people.